Vestas Wind Systems turn to IBM Big Data

Danish energy company Vestas Wind Systems will use IBM
big data analytics software and powerful IBM systems to improve wind turbine
placement for optimal energy output. Turbine placement is a major challenge for
the renewable energy industry, and Vestas expects to accelerate the adoption of
wind energy internationally and expand its business into new markets by
overcoming this challenge.

The final solution cut the processing time from 3
weeks to 15 minutes and cut server energy consumption by 40%.

Vestas is addressing the issue of turbine placement by using IBM BigInsights
software and an IBM "Firestorm" supercomputer to analyze petabytes of
structured and unstructured data such as weather reports, moon and tidal
phases, geospatial and sensor data, satellite images, deforestation maps, and
weather modeling research to pinpoint installation. The analysis, which used to
take weeks, can now be done in less than one hour.